It’s a cloud conundrum. As hybrid-cloud strategies disperse data across multiple computing environments, users are demanding that interfaces become ever more intuitive and streamlined.

Is it possible to keep data assets both easily accessible and completely secure?

Swiss backup and recovery company Veeam Software Corp. gained its reputation for providing reliable, no-nonsense solutions in virtual environments. 2019 saw it grow to maturity, surpassing the billion-dollar milestone and becoming the global leader in data protection.

Now the company is moving into the second phase of its growth, expanding its partner ecosystem and tackling secure backup and recovery in the cloud.

We’re going through a transition here,” said Jim Kruger (pictured, right), chief marketing officer at Veeam. “Act one was really the foundation of the company focusing on virtual environments. Act two is really moving into the cloud.”

Kruger and Rick Vanover (pictured, left), senior director of product strategy at Veeam. spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS re:Invent event in Las Vegas. They discussed Veeam’s move into cloud backup and recovery solutions, its consistent growth, and the company’s product strategy for 2020 and beyond. (* Disclosure below.)

[Editor’s note: The following content has been condensed for clarity.] 

You say act two is moving into the cloud. So, what’s different about cloud?

Vanover: Everything is different in the cloud. The plumbing is different. The use cases are different. The expectations of customers are different. So, when we look at how we’re going to go into a market from a product standpoint, my team works with Jim’s [marketing] team, as well as the product management team, on this very purposefully. But the thought is we need to put in the right platform and the right capabilities for the cloud.

We have been through a lot of iterations on how we’re going to get to this milestone. And I’m really stoked that [Veeam Backup for Amazon Web Services Inc.] was available for this event, live in the marketplace. Whatever you want to save, we’ve got it in this product. File-level recovery, free edition, easy: It just works.

When you look at spending momentum, you’re seeing some people experimenting. And then some of the legacy guys are hanging on to the install base. Veeam is right there with the leaders but has had a really consistent spending momentum for years. My question is, how are you able to sustain that momentum over time?

Kruger: One of the key strategies that we’ve had over the past few years is to work with partners. In Q3 alone we saw 92% year-over-year growth [in technology alliance resale agreements], and so that’s helping us to drive growth. We’ve added some new products — we have backup for Microsoft Office 365, which is a whole new market for us. And we’re seeing tremendous growth there year over year, so that’s helping us to keep steady.

One of the reasons why I joined Veeam is because of the innovation and the development team. They approach the market in terms of really focusing on the user and building products that add a tremendous amount of value. So, I think that’s one of the biggest reasons: We continue to add value to the system and to our customers. We’re adding between 3,000 to 4,000 new customers a month, and our customer count is continuing … we’re at 365,000 customers today and growing fast.

What’s unique about your relationship with AWS, and what’s unique about making your software work in the AWS ecosystem? 

Vanover: Well, the unique part is really our go-to market of partnering first. I like to say that partnership is in Veeam’s DNA. We sell through the channel, and we have the alliance relationships. By going in software only I am actually completely convinced we’re very well positioned in the market to come in with a solution that will work for literally everybody no matter what their preference, what brands of technology they use, what clouds they use.

Amazon has a capability called Object Lock, which can be used for immutable backups or immutable data. We’re using it for backups, and that’s something that we’re going to leverage in our upcoming release [Version 10]. It is going to have a huge amount of capabilities where organizations can have their backup data resilient against ransomware, resilient against malicious admins, insider threats, or accidental deletion. And that is only possible in the cloud. So, if anybody listening is going to be concerned about ransomware, Veeam has a technology that’s evolving for you.

And the best part is it’s going to be transparent. It’s in the user interface. It’s a restore point and the ease of use. I look at the product team and we really have this mantra: simple, reliable, flexible. And who doesn’t want those types of capabilities in a product today?

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS re:Invent event. (* Disclosure:Veeam Software Corp. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Veeam nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE